Poet Edel Garcellano never fails to astonish me. His words, arranged into tight, compact verses, unfailingly find their target, traveling fast like an assassin's bullet. We, the lesser gifted, just blog.
His latest posting shows how some people are blinded by titles like National Artist/National Intellectual. They forget that artists (I use the generic term to include visual, literary and performing artists) have a history of being the conscience of society. And now this NA the poet is referring to has a security guard to protect a little perk like parking space?
There is one NA I shan't forget. How many times have I come across Nick Joaquin walking like any pedestrian on the shaded path of the original EDSA Central? Leo Benesa also wrote a short poem about seeing Joaquin alighting from or getting on board a public jeepney at Gabby's in Mandaluyong City. Wish Nick would haunt this other car-riding NA.
20.
Parking
The guard
was courteous but firm:
please park elsewhere–
slot is for a National Artist
whose credentials include
keynoting progressive causes,
serving the people.
The state generously allows
balding dignitaries
who have been honored
as creative treasure
space for their
genteel habitude.
But what gross entitlement
is this
for dissenters
against neo-fascist rule?
The ploy is real,
disarming radical discourse.
For blind he is
to the irony
consequent of his NCCA
consecration…
Down with injustice!
& earn a seat
on the platform
rising over a crowd
in hysterics
over radical agendum?
In Russia,
commissars
have their dacha
& state sinecure.
Do we repeat
the reign
of Stalinist repertoire?
--Edel Garcellano, www.theworksofedelgarcellano.wordpress.com
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